Next month, the American people will witness an extraordinary
act of hypocrisy: Millions of gallons of fuel will be burned
as a direct result of an international conference convened to
curb fossil fuel use.

On November 2, the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties
(COP-4) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the latest
round of international negotiations intended to reduce world
greenhouse gas emissions (ghgs) and the "threat" of
global warming, will begin in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The central
mission of the COP-4 meeting will be to hammer out further details
of the global warming accord reached last December in Kyoto,
Japan. Under that agreement, the United States agreed to reduce
its ghgs by seven percent below 1990 levels by 2012 - a real
cut of 30% below what they would naturally be once population
and economic growth are factored in. This means that the U.S.
will be required to reduce its fossil fuel use by roughly the
same amount - 30% - as ghgs are produced when fossil fuels are
burned.

With over 9,000 diplomats, journalists, environmentalists and
other observers likely to attend the COP-4 meeting, millions
of gallons of fuel will be burned as a direct result of the conference
- a fact that doesn't seem to bother proponents of the global
warming theory who will take part in the event.

An environmentalist flying from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires to
participate in the COP-4 meeting, for example, will burn 195
gallons of jet fuel1 to make the 12,240-mile2 round-trip journey.
This figure assumes travel on a Boeing-747-400 flight at full
capacity with the total fuel consumption spread evenly among
passengers. The Boeing 747 is one of the few aircraft capable
of making the flight to Buenos Aires without multiple fuel stops.

Other aircraft would require even greater fuel consumption. The
same Los Angeles to Buenos Aires trip would require 258 gallons
of jet fuel per passenger on a L-1011-500 and 215 gallons per
passenger on a MD-11.3

But some participants in the COP-4 meeting will require even
more fuel to attend. A diplomat from Tokyo, for example, will
burn 364 gallons of jet fuel for his or her 22,800-mile round-trip
journey (assuming travel by Boeing 747-400). Meanwhile, observers
from Berlin (14,760 miles), Moscow (16,760 miles), and Peking
(23,940 miles) will burn 235, 267 and 380 gallons of fuel, respectively.
Assuming that the average COP-4 participant travels just 12,000
miles, over 1.7 million gallons of fuel will be burned for the
conference.4 And this is only the tip of the iceberg: Many more
gallons of fuel will be burned for the taxicabs, lighting, air-conditioning
and security needed at the event.

The spectacle of millions of gallons of fuel being burned so
that diplomats, politicians and environmentalists can attend
a conference to lecture people on how they must make sacrifices
to reduce fossil fuel use is incongruous, to say the least. But
its not the first time global warming theory proponents have
been inconsistent.

For example, President Clinton and other western leaders have
regularly argued that reducing greenhouse gases emissions - while
inconvenient - would have negligible effects on western economies.
Yet, these same leaders gave developing nations a free pass at
last year's conference in Kyoto, Japan, allowing these nations'
greenhouse gas emissions to grow unabated because they feared
that limits on developing nations' emissions could hinder economic
progress.

President Clinton and other western leaders have also told us
that greenhouse gas emissions must be stabilized soon if we are
to avert catastrophic global warming. Yet, by signing a treaty
in Kyoto that exempts developing nations from any emissions reductions
whatsoever, these officials guaranteed that such emissions will
not be stabilized by 2012 or any other year in the foreseeable
future. Even before industrialized nations agreed to substantially
reduce their emissions last December, developing nations were
expected to experience the greatest growth in greenhouse gas
emissions. Between 1990 and 1995 alone, Brazil's emissions grew
by 20%, India's by 28%, Indonesia's by 40% and China's by 27%.5
Over the next two decades, developing nations will be responsible
as much as 60% of all greenhouse emissions.6

Perhaps the greatest contradiction, however, is that global warming
theory advocates' dire warnings about the dangers of global warming
have simply not matched reality. Newly-calculated satellite data
indicates that the planet has not been warming at all, but cooling
slightly since 1979.7

If world leaders are to assume the moral high ground in calling
on people to make the sacrifices necessary to reduce world fossil
fuel use, they must first lead by example. To begin with, they
can stop holding multi-million dollar junkets, like the upcoming
meeting in Buenos Aires, that needlessly contribute to overall
greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps by doing so, greenhouse gases
wouldn't be the only hot air curbed.

David A. Ridenour
is Vice President of The National Center for Public Policy Research,
a Washington, D.C. think tank, where he oversees the group's
environmental programs. Comments may be sent to [email protected].